Paul’s Blog: Not All About Rabbits

21/10/2007, Benalla, Victoria
There are lots of suggestions floating around for how everyone can ‘do their part’ to be more efficient with the resources we have. The need for this is because, for water there is not enough because of drought, and government incompetence because they did not plan ahead and build extra water storage or desalination yet. Of course people in dryer areas of the country have been dealing with lack of water for centuries. For power, because the attention is currently on greenhouses gases and climate change - we have no shortage of power generation capacity or fuel.

My main disagreement with most of the suggestions officially recommended is that they are mostly unsuitable for renting.

People renting thier home generally cant make structural or infrastructure changes, and if they could, why would they pay for it when the landlord can remove the tenant at any time with short notice. Landlords, who own their properties as an investment, are not willing to reduce their return on investment by paying for water or energy saving things.

Examples of improvements in this category:

Rainwater storage tanks - unfortunately very expensive, and they are generally installed only to operate the toilet and water the garden, so they tend to increase water use, rather than reducing reliance on mains water.

Insulation - Also expensive to install, and a permanent feature of a house. Lack of insulating makes a house hotter in summer and colder in winter, increasing energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions

Gray water recycling system - Similar issues as for rainwater storage tanks. May not actually reduce water use if used to water the garden, since it is illegal to water the garden using normal water, this just uses water that would have gone to waste to keep the garden alive (not a bad thing anyway)

Window glazing - Since most heat exchange in a building is through the windows, glazing or other forms of glass insulation reduce noise coming into the building and also reduce heating and cooling energy use. Again, something that should be installed by the owner of the building not the tenant.

Hot water system- Hot water systems here come with the place if you’re renting - if you own the house you can buy your own. Electric hot water systems are inherently inefficient compared to gas because the coal must be burnt, the heat converted to electricity, and then the electricity is converted back to heat, but when gas is used for heating, the flame heats the water directly. In the house I lived as a child, there was even a coal-burning hot water service in the laundry when we moved in. The entire room was black with soot! With modern electric hot water systems - that soot is just somewhere else.

And many more…
What we can practically do on our own is limited to relatively small scale things: Short showers, let the garden die, turn lights off when not needed, use efficient lamps…

That is just for the home we also should be conscious of what we do in other areas of life like transport,work,leisure.
Ill leave those for another day…

Work

For the past month i have been working 2 jobs. One full time and physical and the other part time and more brain work (computer programming). Because of this I’ve been tired pretty much all the time and haven’t had much free time.
Tomorrow is the last day of the full time job so from next week I will be working from home and sleeping in…and maybe I will be able to relax for once and do something other than work eat and sleep.
I pray to god each night when i sleep and ask him to bless my sleep and give me proper rest, even though i am getting way less sleep than I should. I think it helps otherwise i would not even be able to get out of bed in the mornings (my alarm is set for 5am). But a few times at work people have said things like “Paul you look really bad” and I think “ok thanks…”. I dont mind that though. Its satisfying to do work whether its moving boxes or programming. The only things that break my routine and annoy me is when someone talks at me without saying hello or good morning first. Or when my boss critcises my work all day and doesnt give a single compliment. I think he has learnt now that i work much better if he gives good and bad feedback though. Yeah im fussy hehe. But i dont HAVE to work there im only doing it as a favour to someone else so he could go on a holiday. Im definetly not staying there because I think my back would be ruined forever within about 6 months. Its already sore and I had to take 2 days off last week because I couldnt move from the pain.
Maybe god was answering my prayers for rest by forcing me to slow down a bit.
Everything else is fine at work, Except yesterday some smart person decided to jam my finger in a door and its gone purple now…

Rabbits
The poor bunnies are getting a bit neglected because I am so busy but I try to be nice to them and look after them. Well they are only neglected compared to what they are used to I guess. I bring one of them inside last night and he just sat under my chair and glared at me the whole time. I guess he was just reflecting my own mood back at me. Tonight I gave him and the other one each a short run around the backyard at twilight. While they ran i lay down and prayed but then i started feeling very itchy and realised that mosquitos were attacking me. There were heaps of them. I came inside and jumped in the shower because i was itchy all over. I count 9 bits on my back, and i was lying ON my back! and dozens of bits elsewhere. Oh well its alright now…

Prayer Plan
The bible says to be constant in prayer.
I used to try to say one pray each day as a minimum but I missed some days. And I find that if I dont pray often things dont go as well and I dont feel that good. Feeling good is not the main reason I want to pray more often though. I think its good to talk to my heavenly father often. It is just strange not to because god is all around us but somehow I am too stubborn to even say hello sometimes!
So I made a plan a few days ago, To pray at least once an hour, and to keep it simple, on the hour. Of course plans like these dont usually work for long. This one worked for about 48 hours with me only forgetting a couple of times. Now i am used to praying a bit more often and i pray as often as I need to but I dont aim for every hour because i know i cant keep it up and be that consistent.
If you are like me (a procrastinator) Dont put praying off.If you feel like you want to say something to god then just pray it can even be only a couple of words long. But hopefully after those couple of words god will motivate you to say more.

Bible reading plan
I have procrastination problems here too…
This month i am going along with Diana’s and Sharla’s reading of proverbs.Proverbs 1 on 1 feb, 2 on 2 feb etc.

Junk
Here a wrote a post last october talking about thowing out a lot of useless things i have held on to for no particular reason. I think its building up again, and my housemate just moved back into his room, so i have to move all my junk back out of his room into mine. Its going to be squishy…hehe. I want to sell or chuck out a lot of stuff as soon as im not so busy.

Public Transport

Just when they reopen my train line, all the trains get brake problems and service goes down to the level of a 3rd world country here in Melbourne. I am so glad i bought a car at the end of last year. I feel sorry for everyone stuck using the trains though. I used to hate driving and be anxious about it and spend hours getting around every day for what would take 30 mins in a car. Now i love driving. Theres something about having your own car and having everything inside it just how you want and knowing where your wheels are. And of course not having the fear of crashing the parents’ car.
So yep public transport is officially a nightmare situation for lots of people and I feel very relieved to have a car.
Maybe this is the new phase of government in Australia. If it had a slogan it would be ‘Dont count on us for nothing look after yourselves - but pay us tax and tax on tax’
yep. Cant really complain though just a whinge.

-Paul